‘Game of Thrones’ Hits Piracy Record

The March 31 season-three premiere of HBO’s “Game of Thrones” was downloaded more than a million times less than 24 hours after it aired, according to research from BitTorrent tracker TorrentFreak.

The news service reported that more than 163,000 people were sharing a copy of the premiere simultaneously April 1, the largest number of people sharing a BitTorrent copy ever, and most since the premiere of “Heroes” (144,000).

“These are mind-boggling numbers that we’ve never seen before,” the site reported. “Counting all the different releases, it’s estimated that the latest ‘Game of Thrones’ episode has been downloaded over a million times already. Considering the above there is little doubt that ‘Game of Thrones’ will once again be crowned the most downloaded TV-show of the year.”

The site reported the most downloads came from the United States, followed by the United Kingdom and Australia. London, Paris and Sydney were the top three cities with the most illegal downloaders.

During the 2012 TV season, “Game of Thrones” was the most-pirated show, according to the site, with close to 4 million downloads per episode. “How I Met Your Mother” came in at No. 2, while “The Big Bang Theory” was No. 3.